From the Planet
by RaretruffleXIII
Summary: Simply the opening of Final Fantasy VII in written form. Not very fan-fic-esque, I know, but I'm hoping this may prelude some more ambitious stories in the future. This is an exercise in writing itself; I doubt I'll continue this much farther than the opening, but I'd be tempted to bring it up to the first raid on the Mako reactor. To that end I'll leave this in-progress.


Too late for the train.

No worries. Could have caught it if she had hurried. Or bit her lip, knuckled down and settled for the route through the main plaza. Would have shaved off ten minutes off her journey, both ways. And what danger is there at this time of night? The security shifts were rotating; the working public were weary and keeping to themselves; it was not nearly late enough for the starlight dregs to be roaming and pulling their cons. She could have been en-route back home at this very moment. But no matter!

What her excursions had led her to was worth the hassle of catching a later train. Exceptional encounters trumped the priority of conducting menial tos-and-froms and really made the day worth waking up for. That's what she thought, at least. Maybe someone else would disagree. Something as little as this could hardly be described as exceptional, but it was different. And difference amongst routine was worth as much as gold.

Within the dense fog of neon advertisement and steely cold concrete, a spring of something brilliant was emerging. The girl with the flower basket was the one to find it, and no one more deserving could have made the discovery. It was emitting from a fractured pavestone down a backstreet alley – between the theatre, unashamedly promoting their new production, _Loveless_ , with mighty glowing letters hanging from the façade, and an abandoned office block, the corpse of which was exploited to holster yet more visual advertisement for _Loveless_ , as well as various corporate products and services. The Flower Girl hunkered down amidst gritty garbage skips and grounded waste bags, the hem of her coral pink dress brushing against the soiled asphalt, all to marvel at the sprinkling green light.

It was luminous. It had the brilliance of the buildings' neon lighting but with more charm, less sleaze. This was something natural, brewing far down beneath the foundations of the city…but it couldn't have come from there. There were hundreds of vertical metres between the city floor and the planet's own grown soil. No, this came from a burst pipe. The spring had not lost its lustre – anything created by the planet was beautiful and precious – but the knowledge that it had been pumped and processed, manipulated and channelled as Mako energy with the purpose of powering the city, made this find a little less enchanting.

The Flower Girl stood and brushed the dust from the front of her dress. Adjusting her red bolero jacket, and checking on the bouquets she failed to sell in the market that day, she ventured from the alleyway into the open street. Best to make her way to the train station now. The next service to Sector 5 wouldn't be running for a while but it was the safest place to sit in wait. The roads were sparse with activity; the odd van swivelled past, a couple of motorcycles—

Then a few more, faster this time, almost reckless. The passers-by in the street hurried their paces to urgent walks whilst troubled looks were thrown here and there, growing more frantic. In the air was a silent chaos, a confusion, and the Flower Girl had only entered that air when a rushing bystander tackled her aside his path like a charging bull. She fell on her backside, bare palms planted onto the gravel, her flower basket dropped on its base but not disturbed much further than that. In the ground, through her delicate fingertips, she felt the vibrations, a stirring. She lifted herself to her feet and joined in the concession of turning heads. On the horizon (what little could be made through the domino run of towering buildings) she spied a faint green light casting its aura upon the darkened sky. Fumes from the Mako reactors? But it had never shone so brightly before. The shaking of the ground grew fiercer, it could now be felt through feet, seen shaking the glass windows, and was followed by a great guttural grumble from a distance away. Within a second's pass, that light turned deep red. Smoke followed.

The commotion in the street turned to sheer panic. Vehicles involuntarily crashed, swerving to avoid the dispersing crowds. People shouted incomprehensible speech to anyone and no one. The flower girl was caught in a desperate paralysis of bewilderment. All direction and purpose was lost in the face of whatever disaster was befalling the city of Midgar. When she saw a small packet of soldiers sprinting down the pavement parallel to herself, she hid away her face as best she could behind the guise of the unremarkable – just another member of the crowd, unimportant and of no interest to the Shinra Incorporation.

She spied the militants as they trundled through the blockading throngs of civilians until they were practically out of sight. There was no more reason to watch for them, until someone caught her eye. From an alleyway adjacent to the main street, came running a young man with blonde hair. He would have otherwise been invisible amongst the other fleeing Johns and Janes, but there was a look on his face – not of terror but of purpose. He was already running before all the panic had started. As he grew closer, he seemed strangely familiar, everything about him inspired déjà vu. His clothes, the voluminous spikiness of his hair and, especially, those shimmering eyes.

He came grinding to a halt at an intersection, merely feet away from the Flower Girl, indecisive on which direction to take. The road in front of them was cluttered with totalled vehicles, some of them flaming, and doubted the accessibility ahead. She could tell he had intended to take that route, it was clear in the intentness of his eyes. As the only seemingly together person in the whole city, and currently in her vicinity, the Flower Girl decided to query the man.

"Excuse me?" He turned and looked at her with those shining blue eyes framed beneath an incredibly serious brow. "What's happened?"

He was silent for a moment. Contemplating. He looked her up and down, and then glanced to her flower basket. It was like standing in front of a security scanner, relentlessly assessing and calculating.

"You'd better get out of here," he ended the interaction there and then, subsequently fleeing down the clearer route at his previous running pace.

The Flower Girl felt momentarily taken away from the situation. Any imminent threat felt far away indeed, and the people around her running around like headless chickens were non-existent. There was something about that guy. He reminded her of someone; as soon as he spoke, it was apparent. She bathed in the pleasant nostalgia, then wondered about the man with the blonde hair, a smile on her face.

She continued to the train station, almost oblivious to the terror around her which, albeit, was subsiding. She mouthed a gentle thank you to the Planet – grateful for exceptional encounters.


End file.
